Background:My adventure began when I aquired Asus HD 4670 ( EAH4670/DI/512M ) with native HDMI. Asus has slapped Two slot Arctic Cooling Accelero L1 OEM cooler, which had 80mm slim fan attached. Fan and shroud were bristle plastic, giving a ding sound. Similar to all clear fan and not thud.

Fan was always spinning top speed, even my hald-deaf 64 year-old mother could hear that fan over couple of meters away. Most annoying character was the high tone sound and air ripping. But in exchange temperatures were good. Core was 35 degree's C (Ambedient 24 degree's C ) in idle and no fan control what so ever.

VNF100-HPVNF100 is composed of 3 nickel plated copper heatpipes and anodized blue aluminium fins. In Size wize, cooler is considerably smaller than AC S1 rev 2. By looking specs, it doesn't seem so obiously smaller but in real life difference is quite bit.

Installation is not complicated, even its puzzle. First you choose from two sockets which has appropriate holes. Socket B was for HD 4670. The mirro shined aluminium center. Yes, its aluminium and not copper as many would have though, with three heatpipe grooves are aseembled with TIM ( Arctic Silver Ceramique in this case ) The assembly reminded of old Zalman passive coolers dating back AGP-era.

Everything went smoothly but Asus card has slightly different component placement, so the final alimnium piece had to be modified slightly with dieamond file, so the attachment piece that secures heat pipes, doesn't bend a soldi condensador. I just wonder why Zalman had to make so excessive design for it as it serves mostly as aesthetics.

The bottom side of the card installed. The bottom fins are excessive size IMHO, I had to use Diamond file to make clearance between a capacitor and fins.

The cooling fins come top of the card and bottom has 3 plastic support bars to keep fins in place.

Due I had previously installed 4 Arctic Cooling Accelero's, I was surprised by Zalman ram sinks. They attached on memories like magnets. There was absolutely no need of pressing them more than a second to secure rams sinks.
Temperatures:Ambedient temperature was 25 degree's C. Case has one Nexus @ 12v exhaust and Slipstream 500 fan as Intake and PSU has 120mm Scythe S-flex fan RPM'ing 500 rpm's.

In cold boot Zalman gave 35 degree's C. That's two degree's better than OEM cooler with sticky stuff, which gave around 37. OEM cooler with Ceramique gave 33 degree's C in cold boot.

I ran few times Aquamrk and other benchmarks whiel HWmonitor 1.13 was running on background. Highest temperature it recorded was around 52 degrees. I have to install 3Dmark06 to get more stress as 3Dmark01 and 03 are not enough. Aquamark 3 alone rose GPU temperature to 45 degree's.

After benchmarks. temperatures settled around 35-37 degree's C in few minutes.

Temperatures surprised me honestly. Since base was alumnium and not copper but with copper heat pipes and entirely VNF100-HP is smaller than any of Accelero's I quite did not expect these good temperatures. HD 4670 is said to be one cool card, but VNF100-HP did not seemed even sweat keeping its temperatures down passively.

Conclusion:This Heatsink has surprised me. Even in Finland its roughly 30% more expensive than Accelero S-series, its cooling performance for lower midrange cards and rather compact size makes it worthy candidate for HTPC set-ups. VNF100-HP as completely passive cooler lacks Zalman's weakspot: Fan. The buildquality of VNF100-HP was excellent, nothing short of what we've learned to expect from Zalman.

In other tests VNF100-HP has managed to cool passively Overclocked 7900 GS, which power consumption is somewhat higher than HD 4670. But I would not use this cooler beyond 9600 GT / HD 4670. As passivly coold, this relies heavily on cases internal air flow.

Once again, I'll be posting pictures later and I will conduct experiment lwith Nexus exhaust fan undervolted once I get change.

If you have questions and I will try to answer them.

The card with Zalman installed on ÂµATX system.

_________________If seeing is believing, how can blind person believe in anything?Maturity is just not experience in life but also ability to make compromises.

Interesting, looks ideal for HTPC use. Just one question, what is the total width of card and cooler combined? (This would be the total height in a HTPC)

Good question. I need to measure that. I'll pm you once I've done it and posted result also in here. But looking the heatpipes and structure it can be adjusted bit in Zalman. Its pretty much same with HR-03, which I cannot out right remember what was that combinations width.

_________________If seeing is believing, how can blind person believe in anything?Maturity is just not experience in life but also ability to make compromises.

Both cards sit adjacent to each other with only 1mm gap between the two coolers and the HD 4850 sits above the 4650 (so is probably thermally disadvantaged). There is minimal airflow in the case exhaust and intake fans (Antec Solo) set at 5 volts.

The idle temps are:

HD 4850 with Accelero S1 rev 2 - 48 C
HD 4650 with Zalman - 52 C

As one would expect from a much more compact design, the Zalman is significantly less efficient but far easier to accomodate.

Jimm's PC store has them now at 29,00â‚¬'s and if you take regular post package, the shipping is free till last on june. I don't know where Jimm's got their supply from since GNT has appareantly dropped Zalman from their selection pretty well.

_________________If seeing is believing, how can blind person believe in anything?Maturity is just not experience in life but also ability to make compromises.

Jimm's PC store has them now at 29,00â‚¬'s and if you take regular post package, the shipping is free till last on june. I don't know where Jimm's got their supply from since GNT has appareantly dropped Zalman from their selection pretty well.

Not really, Turku warehouse stock is -1 now (that's right, negative). No VNF100's in Helsinki either. I asked Jimm's PC store whether or not they really have these in stock and the answer was no. Apparently the number showing up in "Web stock" is a glitch/error of some sort.

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